Zhang Yimou is an iconic film director based in China. Apart from bein the director of most iconic movies, he is also producer, writer and actor, and former cinematographer. He is one of the fifth generation of Chinese filmmakers after his debut with Red Sroghum in 1987.
Zhang has won numerous awards in filmmaking in the best Foreign Film nominations for Ju Dou in 1990. He also won an the Silver Lion prize for Raise The Red Lantern in 1991 and the Golden Lion prize for Hero in 2003 at the Venice Film Festival, Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, and the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. He also directed the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games, which received considerable international acclaim.
Zhangs iconic theme which is reoccurring in most of his movies is the emphasis the resilience of Chinese people in the face of hardship and adversity, a theme which has been explored in such films as To Live (1994) and Not One Less (1999). His films are famous for his rich use of coloured themes which can be seen in various of his works.
Zhang’s father, a former major in Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist (Kuomintang) army, was blacklisted when communists took control of China in the late 1940s. During the Cultural Revolution the younger Zhang spent years in forced labour on a farm; he later worked in a factory. The Cultural Revolution ended in 1976, and two years later he entered the Beijing Film Academy. There Zhang studied with a group of aspiring filmmakers—notably Chen Kaige and Tian Zhuangzhuang—that became known as the Fifth Generation. Deeming modern Chinese movies unimaginative and of poor quality, they sought to make innovative films that often examined the country’s social issues and history
After graduating in 1982, Zhang worked as a cinematographer on such films as Yige he bage (1983; One and Eight), Huang tudi (1984; Yellow Earth), and Lao jing (1986; Old Well). He also acted in the latter film, for which he won the best actor award at the Tokyo International Film Festival. In 1987 Zhang directed his first film, Hong gaoliang (Red Sorghum). The critically acclaimed epic—which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin film festival—starred Gong Li as a woman sold into marriage. Gong subsequently appeared in a number of Zhang’s films, including Ju Dou (1990), a drama about a woman in a loveless marriage who has an affair. Although banned in China, the film was an international success, and it became the first Chinese movie to be nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign film. Several of Zhang’s subsequent movies also ran afoul of Chinese censors, including Da hong denglong gaogao gua (1991; Raise the Red Lantern). The drama, which focused on the tense and ultimately fatal competition between four wives for the favour of their elderly husband, received an Oscar nomination.
After lessing the contents of controversial subjects in his films, he had gain more approval in his films by the Chinese Government, thus, being able to be in charge of the Beijing Olympics ceremony.
-F.N-
Sources:-
No comments:
Post a Comment